The final Short Trips volume comes in the same month as Recorded Time and Other Stories which was a collection of stories. Ok so they were full cast stories but still it’s this is another release made up of multiple stories. Like the previous three volumes all these stories are written largely by new authors which is something that I approve of. The thing that has remained consistant is that there has been a wide variation in terms of quality because when they are good they are really good and when they are not then they are poor. I wondered what we would get this time.
The first story is A Star is Born by Richard Dinnick and to be honest this story doesn’t get the fourth volume off to a great start. I like William Russell and I could listen to him for hours (and do with the Target Audios) but I found this story slightly difficult to follow and with a running time of nearly 25 minutes I thought it was almost 10 minutes too long. The beginning of it was quite interesting and the idea that someone left their home planet many years ago does echo ‘The Ark’ but then the story starts to get unstuck and ultimately I didn’t like this story very much. Then we move onto the Second Doctor story which is Penny Wise, Penny Foolish by Foster Marks which is about this guy who is mining and is buying planets so that he can fulfil an order to allow him to make money so he can buy more planets and do the whole thing again. It was a very interesting and more importantly enjoyable adventure which was short and snappy and was also pretty straightforward.
The third Doctor story is Lost in the Wakefield Triangle by the wonderfully named Vin Marsden Hendrick. It sees an alien race try to invade a garden shed. Yes, only in Doctor Who would a shed being used in such a way. To be honest I found myself liking this story very much. It was read brilliantly by Katy Manning who has a voice that like William Russell’s I could read for hours. It is also one of those stories that are quite snappy and also easy to follow. In the end the farmer and the rhubarb shaped alien come to a deal and a nice little business deal is started. A fun story that continues the positive progression of stories. The fourth story is The Old Rogue by John Grindrod and sees the Doctor and Romana visit a man that is working in a café. It’s sort of a prison but it’s a normal everyday café. This story is read brilliantly and whilst I didn’t find it as straight forward as the previous stories it was still another highly enjoyable adventure. For me the funniest thing that the thought that K9 was outside of the café and was attacking the youths outside and setting fire to their football.
The fifth story is quite an interesting one an and uses a famous landmark in Lions of Trafalgar by Jason Arnopp and its good because it’s a familiar landmark and sits it right in the middle of a sci-fi story. It’s actually quite a good story with quite a good basis for a story but what I found surprising about this story was Peter Davison. I sometimes find his reading to be a bit uninspiring. Unless the story is very good it means that I often find the story harder to follow.
But the sixth story written by Cindy Garland is my favourite Short Trip story out of all four volumes. In To Cut a Blade of Grass there is a mystery about what connects the Doctor and an old man being visited by his daughter. It seems that nothing major is going to happen and then what we learn is that the Doctor has been taking the old man into the future to see what his daughter will become. I thought it was beautifully told and I could easily heard this as a 30 minute story. It was superbly read by Colin Baker and obviously is my favourite story of this volume. The penultimate adventure is The Shadow Trader by Charles William. Now the opening scene describes what the shadow was and it was all a bit of a mystery to me. It wasn’t until later on that I understood what it was and the rest of the story made sense. It was a nice story.
The final story was Quntum Heresy by Avril Naude. It sees a woman who is working in a bland position who is visited by the Doctor over and over again. The Doctor is stuck in a time-loop and is getting older with every visit. I thought that this was a fine story that didn’t seem like much to begin with but soon became interesting and this was a great way to end this release. I think that this was the best of the Eighth Doctor adventures.
Overall this volume was a relatively good one. There were more good/better stories than terrible ones but I do think that overall the four volumes have been quite an interesting experiment. I never read the books and think that having such inconsistent durations for stories (ranging from 10 minutes to 25) does have its advantages but more often than not its disadvantages. If there are to be more volumes in the future (as of now there is now official word) then I would hope that they reduce the number of Doctors and have longer stories (I know their suppose to be short but I think 4 x 20 minute adventures would be better).
The first story is A Star is Born by Richard Dinnick and to be honest this story doesn’t get the fourth volume off to a great start. I like William Russell and I could listen to him for hours (and do with the Target Audios) but I found this story slightly difficult to follow and with a running time of nearly 25 minutes I thought it was almost 10 minutes too long. The beginning of it was quite interesting and the idea that someone left their home planet many years ago does echo ‘The Ark’ but then the story starts to get unstuck and ultimately I didn’t like this story very much. Then we move onto the Second Doctor story which is Penny Wise, Penny Foolish by Foster Marks which is about this guy who is mining and is buying planets so that he can fulfil an order to allow him to make money so he can buy more planets and do the whole thing again. It was a very interesting and more importantly enjoyable adventure which was short and snappy and was also pretty straightforward.
The third Doctor story is Lost in the Wakefield Triangle by the wonderfully named Vin Marsden Hendrick. It sees an alien race try to invade a garden shed. Yes, only in Doctor Who would a shed being used in such a way. To be honest I found myself liking this story very much. It was read brilliantly by Katy Manning who has a voice that like William Russell’s I could read for hours. It is also one of those stories that are quite snappy and also easy to follow. In the end the farmer and the rhubarb shaped alien come to a deal and a nice little business deal is started. A fun story that continues the positive progression of stories. The fourth story is The Old Rogue by John Grindrod and sees the Doctor and Romana visit a man that is working in a café. It’s sort of a prison but it’s a normal everyday café. This story is read brilliantly and whilst I didn’t find it as straight forward as the previous stories it was still another highly enjoyable adventure. For me the funniest thing that the thought that K9 was outside of the café and was attacking the youths outside and setting fire to their football.
The fifth story is quite an interesting one an and uses a famous landmark in Lions of Trafalgar by Jason Arnopp and its good because it’s a familiar landmark and sits it right in the middle of a sci-fi story. It’s actually quite a good story with quite a good basis for a story but what I found surprising about this story was Peter Davison. I sometimes find his reading to be a bit uninspiring. Unless the story is very good it means that I often find the story harder to follow.
But the sixth story written by Cindy Garland is my favourite Short Trip story out of all four volumes. In To Cut a Blade of Grass there is a mystery about what connects the Doctor and an old man being visited by his daughter. It seems that nothing major is going to happen and then what we learn is that the Doctor has been taking the old man into the future to see what his daughter will become. I thought it was beautifully told and I could easily heard this as a 30 minute story. It was superbly read by Colin Baker and obviously is my favourite story of this volume. The penultimate adventure is The Shadow Trader by Charles William. Now the opening scene describes what the shadow was and it was all a bit of a mystery to me. It wasn’t until later on that I understood what it was and the rest of the story made sense. It was a nice story.
The final story was Quntum Heresy by Avril Naude. It sees a woman who is working in a bland position who is visited by the Doctor over and over again. The Doctor is stuck in a time-loop and is getting older with every visit. I thought that this was a fine story that didn’t seem like much to begin with but soon became interesting and this was a great way to end this release. I think that this was the best of the Eighth Doctor adventures.
Overall this volume was a relatively good one. There were more good/better stories than terrible ones but I do think that overall the four volumes have been quite an interesting experiment. I never read the books and think that having such inconsistent durations for stories (ranging from 10 minutes to 25) does have its advantages but more often than not its disadvantages. If there are to be more volumes in the future (as of now there is now official word) then I would hope that they reduce the number of Doctors and have longer stories (I know their suppose to be short but I think 4 x 20 minute adventures would be better).
No comments:
Post a Comment